In early June 1984, the Indian government dispatched a whole division of troops, with the cooperation of special police, paratroopers, border armed police and other units, with tanks and armored vehicles, launched a large-scale attack on the Sikh Holy Land Golden Temple and the surrounding religious-occupied outbuildings, and hundreds of Sikh militants trapped in these buildings engaged in a six-day maneuver with the overwhelmingly superior Indian army, and both sides suffered heavy casualties in this battle. It also became the trigger for the Sikh assassination of Indian Prime Minister Ing Gandhi a few months later (for details of the assassination of Ing Gandhi, see the female prime minister of the factory who confidently gambled her life but lost badly, the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984).
The Golden Temple complex before Operation Blue Star, these buildings have many rooms, narrow passages, and are difficult to attack
Schematic of the entire Golden Temple complex
The Golden Temple in Amritsar, Punjab, India, is the holiest worship center of Sikhism and is known by Sikhs as the "Jewel of the Sikh Crown". Because the British took the method of provoking ethnic and religious contradictions to divide and rule during the colonial period of India, the contradictions between the local Sikhs and Hindus have always been deep.
After India's independence in 1947, ethnic, religious, and ethnic, and ethnic conflicts between different castes have continued. The Indian government, adhering to the mantle of the British colonists, carried out a harsh suppression of all contradictions without distinction. After entering the 1980s, with the gradual relaxation of the international situation, various contradictions in India began to intensify. In 1982, Sikhs in Punjab became increasingly radicalized after the Indian military and police repeatedly suppressed their peaceful and wishful activities (which resulted in many Sikh casualties in the process), and when the most radical of the Sikh sect, the Akali Party, demanded a high degree of autonomy and even independent statehood, punjab relations with the Indian central government deteriorated rapidly.
In 1982, Akari leader Bindranval (ironically, the party's backers when it began its efforts to clean up India in the late '70s and early '80s) were actually Indira Gandhi's favorite youngest son, Sanjay Gandhi, in other words, without Sanjay Gandhi's original support, there would have been no Akali Party's 1982 momentum. However, Sanjay Gandhi died in a plane crash on June 23, 1980, without being able to see for himself how much trouble his mother, Ying Gandhi, caused by the freaks he had cultivated) and about 600 party members carrying some of the light weapons of World War II and some of the small arms (including rifles, submachine guns, light machine guns and bazookas) smuggled out of the barracks through Sikh soldiers in the Indian Army into a hotel called Guru Nanak Nivas next to the Golden Temple. It is used as its office space to receive press interviews, worship of believers and donations from all walks of life.
The Indian government naturally hates this to the bone, but the local area is the traditional territory of Sikhism, and a little carelessness may cause great chaos, and this Sikh group is already armed, so the Indian military and police have to restrain their usual rough style and become tied hands and feet.
Akari Party leader Bhindranvar
Fast forward to 1983, and the Hamandir Sahib district had become a hub for Sikh separatists, and violence continued unabated as more and more Sikh extremists concentrated there. On 23 April 1983, Atwal, deputy commissioner of the Punjab Police Department, was shot dead by Sikh militants near the Golden Temple. The next day, Indian officials suggested that the murder had been carried out at the behest of Bhindranval. Tensions on the ground have reached new heights. The Indian government, no longer able to sit idly by and do whatever the Sikh extremists wanted, began mobilizing military police to surround the Golden Temple, while warning other Sikh groups that supported the Akari party and ordering them to immediately withdraw their support for the party or else be rude.
Bundranval, escorted by his armed followers, went to the Golden Temple, where he could be seen smuggling Sterling submachine guns from the army
Under strong pressure from the Indian government, Sikh groups announced that they would no longer support the Akali Party, and by July 4 of that year, the Party was completely isolated politically. In October 1983, Prime Minister Anglo Gandhi announced the dissolution of the Punjab government and herself direct administration of the state, while she began mobilizing regular field troops to prepare to deal with the extremists by force if necessary.
In November 1983, time magazine sent someone to Amritsar to interview the local area, and in the reporter's pen, it was depicted as a city of death. Inside religious sites, Sikh extremists brandish all kinds of weapons to keep Indian military police from entering; outside, military police are waiting for each other. Skirmishes between the two sides are constant, and the bodies of security forces or extremists often appear in the alleys. On December 15, 1983, under pressure from numerous Sikh groups, Bünderranval and his supporters were forced to move out of the Nivas Hotel, but they then entered the Golden Temple and nearby buildings, which they turned into fortresses.
Armed Sikhs
In May 1984, seeing that the Indian government was exerting increasing pressure on itself, the Akalli Party was desperate to turn passivity into initiative, saying that the Indian government's discriminatory policies over the years had prevented the living standards of the Sikhs in Punjab from improving, and called on the Punjabs to carry out a "non-cooperation campaign" and refuse to ship grain to other places. This fierce trick stuck the lifeblood of the Indian government, and since Punjab is one of India's major food producing regions, half of India's grain is produced in the state. Not only did the Akari party's move wreak havoc on the Indian economy, but other Sikh groups had to support it in the name of seeking justice for the Sikhs, leaving the upcoming british Gandhi and congress governments in a very awkward position. But this also amounted to pushing the British Gandhi government into a corner, and it was from then on that that the British Gandhi was determined to solve the problem by force.
Indira Gandhi
But as a scheming politician, In Gandhi still made enough superficial remarks, and in public she met with the leaders of Sikh groups many times to release "peace sincerity"; but in private, she secretly transferred the 9th Army Division, the 4th Battalion of the Central Reserve Police Force, the 7th Battalion of the Border Security Force, the Punjab Armed Police Force, as well as the paratroopers, armored troops and artillery units, and tens of thousands of troops stationed in Amritsar, and when the time came, she gave the Sikhs a little color. In the face of the pressure of the army, the Akari Party's Bindranvalle was intoxicated by his recent "achievements," so he refused the persuasion of the Sikh groups to him, forcefully declaring: "Unless the Indian government makes concessions and agrees to the independence of the Sikhs, it will never lay down its arms." In this case, a showdown between the two sides is already inevitable.
The militants set up observation posts and fire points on the towers of the Golden Temple
In June 1984, British Gandhi approved Operation Blue Star against Sikh militants. It should be said that it was very difficult to make this decision. Because there are many Sikh soldiers in the Indian army, they occupy many positions above and below the Indian army, and the resistance is very large. Ruying Gandhi had originally planned to ask Lieutenant General S. K. Sinha, then Deputy Chief of The Indian Army General Staff and already in the office of the next Chief of Staff of the Army, to draft a document on the Government's position to the press after the attack on the Golden Temple was launched. But Lieutenant General Sinha suggested that military action should not be taken on the grounds that the Golden Temple is a Sikh shrine and that attacking it as a blasphemy against the "gods" was invoked. In Gandhi decisively removed Lieutenant General Sinha and replaced it with Lieutenant General Arun Shridar Wadia, Chief of The Indian Army Chief of Staff, and Wadia, with the assistance of The Deputy Chief of The General Staff, Lieutenant General Sandaghi, drew up the "Blue Star Operation" plan.
On the side of the Akali Party, former Major General Shabeg Singh was in charge of commanding Sikh militants against the Indian military. Shabeg, who was familiar with Indian tactics, knew that his own conditions were extremely limited, far inferior in firepower and strength, so his purpose was to delay the Indian advance as much as possible, while causing a large number of casualties on the other side, in order to buy time and force the Indian government to finally abandon the use of force under political and international pressure. Therefore, he placed a large number of roadblocks outside the Golden Temple and other militant entrenched buildings, and he paid special attention to setting up various "traps", that is, deliberately making certain places "look" weak in defense to attract the Indian army to attack, but in fact, these "loopholes" were narrow stairs, walkways, corridors or rooms that could not be deployed by troops, and strict crossfire was deployed behind the "loopholes".
Whether his hand will work, we will see later.
On 1 June 1984, the Indian military had largely completed its offensive deployment and began to clear Sikh strongholds on the periphery in order to squeeze the militants to the smallest possible territory and annihilate them. At 12.40 p.m. on the same day, the Central Reserve Police Force began firing on a building occupied by Sikh forces. Under strict military orders, border security forces also joined the fighting, and after a burst of indiscriminate gunfire, all Sikh militants in the building were killed, along with 8 civilians who died under the indiscriminate gunfire.
Indian military police attacked the buildings occupied by the militants, which showed that the buildings had been set on fire
On 2 June 1984, British Gandhi ordered indian forces to tightly seal the border between Nagar and Pakistan on the Ganges River from Kashmir to Rajasthan to prevent Pakistan from benefiting from the incident. She also ordered the deployment of about 7 divisions (about 60,000 men) in Punjab to suppress any possible Sikh violence against Operation Blue Star. Late that night, the Indian government abruptly announced a 36-hour curfew throughout punjab, suspended rail, road and air services in punjab, cut off all communication lines in the state, even running water and electricity, conducted a comprehensive censorship of the news media, and banned all foreigners and outsiders from entering punjab. On the same day, General Gauri Shankar was appointed Senior Security Adviser in Punjab Province. On 3 June, Lieutenant General Kurdip Singh Blair, the former commander-in-chief of Operation Blue Star (it is not difficult to guess that the cargo was also a Sikh when he saw the name "Singh") appeared, and he would be in charge of the front-line attack under the command of General Sandaghi.
Indian military police build fortifications around the Golden Temple, noting that the first one on the right is a Sikh
Since the morning of June 4, the Indian army has used British 88.7 mm howitzers to violently shell the main building and surrounding facilities of the Golden Temple, and many historic buildings have been shelled and even reduced to rubble. But the shelling did destroy many of the barricades and perimeter fortifications set up by Shahberg, and only tanks and armored vehicles were sent to surround the Golden Temple complex, preventing militants from breaking through and blocking possible external support roads.
About 100 people died that day in fierce fighting between the two sides.
Indian artillery operating a 25-pound 88.7 mm howitzer
The Golden Temple building that was shelled and damaged
By this time the news of the Indian attack on the Golden Temple had spread throughout Punjab, and as Bhindranvar had hoped, Sikh believers from all over the country had gathered in solidarity with the Akali Party. Many radical believers even organized themselves and marched to Amrit in defiance of the government's martial law and curfew. These actions were discovered by Indian helicopters, and In Gandhi gave the army a green light to avoid long nights, allowing the army to use all necessary means against these believers. The Deputy Chief of the General Staff, General Sundarji, ordered the use of tanks and armored vehicles against the believers, and eventually the Indian army succeeded in blocking the Sikh attempt to enter Amritsar, the Indian government did not count the casualties caused during this period, but the Sikhs said that hundreds of believers were killed.
In order to give the militants who held the Golden Temple a chance to surrender, Gucharan Singh Torah, a former senior member of the High Decision-Making Council of the Sikh Nation of India, was entrusted by the Indian government and other Sikh sects to enter the Golden Temple to negotiate with Bindraval and persuade them to lay down their arms and fight for a peaceful settlement; however, Bindraval, who had no way to retreat, refused to surrender. He was too confident that the Indian government could not withstand international and domestic pressure to attack the Golden Temple for a long time, and eventually the negotiations broke down and the Indian army attack began again.
Bindraval was right to estimate that the Indian government was under increasing pressure, but In Gandhi's resolve did not waver, and she exerted strong pressure on the generals, ordering them to solve the problem the next day, or they would all lose their posts and go home with their grandchildren.
In order to keep his official position and not fall into the fate of being driven home to bring his children with their children, the generals ordered the troops besieging the Golden Temple to take the Golden Temple at any cost.
After the rising sun ushered in the dawn of June 5, the Indian army's attack became more ferocious, and the bloodiest day of the Battle of the Golden Temple began! Indian artillery carried out indiscriminate and heavy shelling of the Golden Temple complex held by the Sikhs. A large number of soldiers of the 9th Division, driven by officers and non-commissioned officers, launched an unprecedented frontal attack on the main complex of the Golden Temple, which was beaten to pieces by the fierce fire of both sides.
The shelled Golden Temple was in flames and smoke was rising
At 19:00 p.m., the Indian army launched a general attack on the Golden Temple. Border Security forces and central reserve police forces attacked 2 luxury hotels southwest of the Golden Temple. After 3 hours of fierce fighting, the Indian army took control of the two buildings. The military and police also attacked other buildings controlled by the militants around the Golden Temple, and under the cover of fierce fire, the resistance of the militants was crushed one by one, and finally the Indian army captured all the strongholds outside the Golden Temple before 22:00, completely completing the encirclement of the Golden Temple.
At 22:00, the Indian army dispatched the 10th Guards Battalion, the 1st Paratrooper Commando and the Border Special Police Force to carry out the main attack on the gate of the Golden Temple in 3 ways at the same time; the 26th Madras Battalion and the 9th Kuma Ang Battalion carried out auxiliary assaults on the south side gate.
Siege of the Golden Temple Indian army machine gun positions, the machine gun is the Belgian FN-MAG universal machine gun
When the Indian troops rushed into the Golden Temple from the northern gate, they were hit by the crossfire of light machine guns deployed by the militants on both sides of the steps, and the remaining Indian commandos climbed down the steps with rolling belts, but before they could gain a foothold, they were again fired by the fire from the buildings on the south side of the sacred pool of the compound, and they were driven backwards by the fire, and finally they were beaten back to the starting point of the attack. Paratroopers and border swats, under the cover of numerous large pillars, moved forward inch by inch, and it took them a long time to reach the west of the main building of the Golden Temple, where they were subjected to heavy fire from inside the Golden Temple. Because they had received strict instructions before they set out, it was strictly forbidden to fire on the main building of the Golden Temple, so as not to anger all the Sikhs, they could only lie on the ground or hide behind the cover to avoid the fire, and they were overwhelmed by the dense bullets fired from the Golden Temple, and the Sikh soldiers in the attacking troops were even more unable to work hard to hit the soy sauce and attack. If you think about it too much, if you let the clan family know that you shot at your own holy place, you can't even think about the consequences.
The first attack of the Indian army collapsed.
But after all, the Indian army occupies an overwhelming advantage in firepower and strength, in the confrontation with the militants, the Indian commando team began to gradually gain the upper hand, although it could not immediately take the main building of the Golden Temple, but under the cover of fierce fire, it still approached the main building step by step. After approaching the main building of the Golden Temple, the Indian commando team threw tear gas into the building in an attempt to force the militants out of the building and annihilate them, but the tear gas they threw rebounded back, but instead fell into their own attack formation, causing many commandos to be choked to tears, which greatly affected the attack of the troops.
At the same time, the 26th Madras Battalion and the 9th Galwar Battalion of the Reserve were met with heavy fire from militants from several directions. They spent a lot of time under heavy fire trying to open the thick and sturdy south gate, but this dead iron guy couldn't figure out anything but tank guns. This fatal delay caused a large number of casualties among the Indian troops inside the Golden Temple, who were attacked by the concentrated fire of fire from all directions, and the casualties were extremely heavy.
The deployment of former Army Major General Shaberg Singh was very effective! Again and again, the Indians fell into the traps he had set, and he maneuvered several light machine guns back and forth inside the labyrinthine building, turning the promenade and the room into a death trap. Sikh light machine guns are usually less than 30 centimeters from the ground, and neither lying down nor creeping forward can avoid the fire, and a large number of Indian soldiers are shot and wounded.
The second attack of the Indian army collapsed again!
In the end, the Indian army, which could not bear it, directly drove 1 tank and 3 armored vehicles into the compound of the Golden Temple, and used vehicle-mounted machine guns to provide direct fire support to the commandos. The Indians again organized an attack wave of 200 commandos and SWAT officers to carry out a third assault on the pool outside the main building of the Golden Temple, but this time only the Madras and Galwar battalions successfully completed the mission, occupying the south side of the pool, and the rest of the assault was fought back by the militants.
Although the effect of the third attack was still unsatisfactory, the good guys made some progress.
Schematic of Operation Blue Star
Despite the increasing number of casualties, Sandaghi ordered his troops to launch a fourth attack! At this time, the bodies of the Indian army and the militants had been stacked in the square outside the Golden Temple and the walkway leading to the Golden Temple, and a young Captain madras Battalion rushed into the Golden Temple with 9 daredevils under the cover of fierce fire, they were the first Indian troops to break into the main building of the Golden Temple, and as a result, they underestimated the number of militants in the temple, encountered a large group of armed elements in the narrow passage, 7 people were killed on the spot in the melee, and 2 people were seriously injured and climbed out of the Golden Temple and were rescued by their own side. The captain who led the team withdrew from the Golden Temple unscathed, but later returned to the Golden Temple to try to save a wounded non-commissioned officer, only to be caught by the militants, and after a round of torture, the brave and unlucky captain was finally tied with explosives and blown to pieces in front of the attacking Indian army, the "heavy taste" of the scene made the Indian soldiers who saw this scene sick to their stomachs and their morale was greatly damaged.
As attacks were repeatedly repulsed and troop casualties were increasing, the morale of front-line officers and men was low. Indian Brigadier General Divan personally ventured into the compound of the Golden Temple, which was still fiercely fighting, and was responsible for directly commanding the battle on the front line. Determined to use heavy weapons to suppress the militants, he brought in a mechanized infantry battalion (the 8th mechanized infantry battalion, equipped with Soviet BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles) to assist in the battle.
The officers and men of the Eighth Mechanized Infantry Battalion attacked the Golden Temple, and the figure of the BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicle was vaguely visible behind them
BMP-1 infantry in combat
Brigadier General Diwan reported to his superiors that the troops had suffered heavy casualties and that the attack would not be able to continue without reinforcements. General Blair then sent two companies of the 15th Kuma'an Regiment to support the front-line attacking forces. But the hard bones of the Golden Temple could not even be gnawed by the elite special forces, not to mention the ordinary troops of these 2 companies, who had just entered the battle and suffered serious casualties. Brigadier General Diwan, completely distrustful of his infantry, requested tank support.
At this time, when a Polish-made OT-64 wheeled armored vehicle slowly approached the gate of the Golden Temple, a rocket hit it accurately, killing the driver and the commander on the spot, and the armored vehicle lying on the spot. Seeing that it was indeed impossible to capture the Golden Temple by armored vehicles alone, Bural turned to the military headquarters in New Delhi to allow him to use the Victory tank.
This was the OT-64 armored vehicle that was destroyed by Sikh militants
The Indian Army's "Victory" main battle tank
OT-64 armored vehicle
At about 7:30 a.m. on 6 June, the 105 mm main guns of the other six Victory tanks of the 16th Cavalry Regiment, which had been on cover missions outside, began to use fragmented armor shells to indiscriminately shoot directly at the golden temple building, but all positions that appeared to be Tibetans were fired first. Indian tanks fired at least 80 shells, causing severe damage to the complex, including shrines, prayer rooms and many exquisite statues destroyed by artillery fire.
After the tanks were put into battle, the Indian army finally began to gain the upper hand, and as the fire points were knocked out one by one, the Indian infantry rushed into the Golden Temple from all directions. Sikh militants were no longer able to resist the Indian attack, they were crushed backwards, most of them were eventually killed or captured, a small number of militants who tried to break through were ruthlessly shot by the military police on the periphery, and the leader of the Akari Party, Bindranval, and the military leader Shabeg Singh also died in the rebellion. However, it took Indians another 24 hours to purge the militants of the perimeter complex of the Golden Temple. On 7 June, Sandaji rushed to report to Ing Gandhi that the Indian army had completed the purge of the militants and had complete control of the entire Golden Temple.
In fact, many of the remaining militants at this time are still stubbornly resisting. On June 8, the Indian commando team found 4 militants in the basement of a tower during the search, so they immediately shouted to persuade them to surrender, after the shouts were ineffective, the Indian army repeatedly attacked the basement, but to no avail, during which a colonel was killed by light machine guns when leading the team to raid the basement, and the two sides confronted each other until the afternoon of the 10th, when the Indian army killed 4 people. At this point, the whole operation is completed.
The Indian army is on alert after taking control of the Golden Temple
After the fierce battle, the walls of the Golden Temple were full of bullet holes and the ground was stained with blood
According to a white paper released by the Indian government afterwards, the Indian army and police lost a total of 136 people and injured 220 in the operation. 492 civilians were killed, 433 of the 1592 Sikhs were arrested, and almost no of the 200 Sikh militants survived, all of them killed (a loss ratio that was extremely ugly and humiliating for the Indian Army). But other sources show that the casualties of this incident far exceed the official figures, the British media BBC said that some sources believe that the number of civilian casualties is between 5,000 and 20,000, the number of Indian casualties is 700, and the US media CNN claims that 360 Indian troops were killed.
Operation Blue Star, while a tactical victory, had a series of serious consequences, the most immediate of which was the assassination of Ingandy himself by his own Sikh guards on 31 October.
An art work depicting In Gandhi being shot by his own Sikh guards
In addition, Sikh officers and men serving in the Indian army also created a number of mutinies, more than 4,000 people participated, the most serious one was that some recruits in a Sikh infantry regiment in Ramga killed all the officers such as the regimental commander, and after seizing the weapons in the arsenal, they tried to go to Punjab to support their Sikh compatriots, and eventually this rebel army was completely destroyed under siege by other Indian troops. Although successive Indian governments have tried to mitigate the impact of this matter, they have had little effect. The rift between Hinduism and Sikhism caused by the Golden Temple incident is like a huge volcano, and no one knows which day it will erupt.
The Golden Temple and its surrounding complex, which were renovated after the Battle of the Golden Temple in 1984